A web development contract template

Posted on 28 October 2010 by Pete Duncanson Tweet

A good contract is the bedrock upon which all work between client and agency is based. With that in mind, it needs to be clear and fair to both sides but also cover many bases.

I'm sure most freelancers and agencies out there do already have a standard client contract template that they use on all projects but as an active browser of design sites and Twitter, I still find it amazing how many designers actually get stuck when a client does something outside the scope of what standard contract should cover and they end up in a world of pain.

As such, we're trying to put out useful and helpful resources whenever we can and this is hopefully another one to throw into the mix.

Grab yourself a sample web design contract

This has been the standard template (subject to tweaks over time of course) that we use with our happy clients and that I've used over the last few years freelancing and it's always been a reliable one.

For your editing convenience, everything we suggest you change is highlighted so you've just got to do a few search and replaces and add in your own payment terms and that's one less thing to stress about.

You can either right click and "save as" to grab the doc or you can click on the image and it'll open in a .doc reader such as MS Word or Open Office.

If it's helpful to you, brilliant. If not, please take a second to retweet this post as it might be useful to fellow designers out there. If you've got any feedback or suggestions on contracts, feel free to add it in the comments.

A note about fonts: We like to use "Cambria" from Microsoft. If you're on a Mac, you can grab it here otherwise the document will default to something else.